Category: Off topic

I can’t easily express how culturally significant I think Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” is, but I think it says a lot that the song, which is now No. 1 on Billboard’s chart, has a video in which Jepsen’s crush turns out to be gay, and no one seems to be throwing a fit about it.

Roller derby is a complicated game with a set of rules that gets bigger and more complex with every iteration. Every time I explain the game to a person who has never seen a bout, I’m reminded how complex it is. And I wonder about roller derby’s ability to attract a larger and mainstream audience. And I worry that our complex rules are a huge contributing factor to its niche status.

Derby, once you understand how to read it, is as dramatic as any other sport.

But how do you teach people to read it if they don’t understand the rules? How do you explain to a newbie, for example, cutting rules? If you cut in front of two skaters, it’s a major. If you cut one, it’s a minor. Unless that person is ahead of everyone else and on the other team, then it’s a major. Except if she’s so far ahead that she’s out of play, then it’s nothing. (Let’s not even get into the beast that is the point-scorer-changing star pass, which gives referees nightmares.)

Now, I’ve been warned about making analogies to and using examples from other sports, but stick with me.

Every summer, I go see the local AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim of Southern California of the United States. I drink beer, shout at players and umpires and have a good time. I follow the Phillies and am happy when they win and sad when they lose.

Still, I have no idea how the infield-fly rule works. And I don’t have a great grasp of dropped third strikes and foul-tip outs.

And then there’s hockey, which I watch live once or twice a year. I honestly have no idea what you can and cannot do.

But I understand the way to keep score. And that, for most fans, is enough to convey the drama that attracts us to sports.

Embattled (there’s a journalism cliche I’ve always wanted to use not really) University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen G. Bloom told Jim Romenesko:

“I’m at an undisclosed location. I left because I don’t want some of these crazy people who are reading everything they want to read into my story to know where I am.”

Ten bucks says Bloom, a man I’d consider a mentor, is on pre-planned holiday trip.

Originally published in The Tampa Tribune on Sept. 4, 2008

TAMPA – Good food has amazing curative powers. Thick tomato soup with drizzled olive oil at a Tuscan wine bar rescued me from car sickness induced by bouncing around wine country in a full backseat. Three-bean soup from the grocery store a block away from my college apartment cured my hangovers. A four-hour, eight-course meal from then-under-the-radar chef Grant Achatz cured me of the flu.

To that list add SideBern’s foie gras appetizer with caramelized peaches, pine-nut puree and sherry reduction. The dish rescued me from an impending cold.

Though it may have been the heirloom Berkshire pork belly, cooked sous-vide (a cooking process that involves vacuum sealing food in plastic and cooking it for long periods of time in warm water) and served with figs, walnuts and Taleggio cheese that has been blowtorched.

SideBern’s, described nine years ago in these pages as “a hip cousin to venerable Bern’s Steak House,” is still good at mixing the hip and the elegant. The interior, which hasn’t changed in a decade, features high ceilings, high-backed banquettes and classy blue sheer curtains.

But since executive chef Chad Johnson and chef de cuisine Courtney Orwig took over for popular Jeannie Pierola in December, the pair have slowly been putting their personal stamp on the menu. The dim sum and all but a vestige of Pierola’s “One World Cuisine” are gone. The outstanding cheese selection remains. Less elegant – but thoroughly respectable – meats, such as bison and pork belly, have appeared. The food has kept its edge.

But at times the hipster thing goes too far: When seated, each guest is presented with a 12-by-18-inch steel clipboard. Sorry, dear dining companion, if I accidentally smacked you with the unwieldy menu.

Picking an entree dish from that menu is still a pleasurable chore, and any of the constantly changing options would be a good bet. On a recent visit, we ate SideBern’s seared duck breast with pears and port glaze, filet mignon au poivre with wild mushrooms and creamy peppercorn sauce, and a great buffalo striploin with smoked hummus and pepperoncini sauce. Each lived up to our high expectations.

If picking one entrée is too much of a struggle, SideBern’s offers a five-course tasting menu for $75. Paired wines are a $35 option. But that may make the struggle to decide worse; for each of the five courses, diners choose between two options.

The desserts, a specialty of both SideBern’s and Bern’s, were a slight letdown. The chocolate beignets – five of them – were overcooked and accompanied by a dunk tank each of peanut butter, raspberry and orange sauces. The $8 Ultimate Milkshake, offered in any flavor of the house-made ice cream, wasn’t the best we’d ever had (it was too airy), but where else can you get a goat-cheese-and-almond shake? And the letdown says more about the quality of the entrees than the quality of the desserts.

Service was generally superb from the moment we walked in without a reservation until the time we left, but we had a few nit-picks: Our bread was served with butter that was still ice cold and unspreadable, and on three occasions, a dining companion was asked if he was still “working” on his entree before he had finished his meal. Between the unnecessary euphemism for “eating” and its repetition, we felt pestered.

Still, even with the changing of the guard in the kitchen, SideBern’s remains a beacon of hope on Tampa’s culinary landscape.